Say No To Lawn Chemicals; Say Yes To Blackberries

So, I'll be sitting on my futon in the living room by the big window doing a spot of morning reading when a truck filled with chemicals pulls up outside, and a dude in a hazmat suit gets out and sprays my neighbors' yard with only God knows what.

That's definitely a buzzkill to the easy early morning isn't life grand vibe.

Either my neighbors really hate dandelions (to which I will quote William Niering, "There is nothing wrong with dandelions; there is something wrong with people.") or they fell for one of the many direct mail solicitations that I get as well which attempt to make people feel neurotic about their lawns.  I'm pretty live as let live, but their paying to put potentially health-damaging chemicals on the lawn makes me think I live near some stupid people (on top of that, they seem to run an under the table daycare service there as well--let's play on the lawn and get cancer, kids!).  I just hope none of that crap gets over on my property or gets the other neighbor's cat, who loves to roam, sick.

Meanwhile, across the street in my yard is a lawn chemical company's worst nightmare.  Not only do I not pay them anything, I let just about anything grow (I draw the line at poison ivy, Canadian thistle--I like Canadians but these ones should be deported--and a few other plants) in the lawn, and I don't care how it looks, thereby puncturing the local conformity in yard appearance that they use to pressure people with (furthermore, I only mow the thing as often as I do because the city would fine me if I didn't, and I use a reel mower--no gasoline or electricity needed).  As a result, I get plants such as blackberries sprouting up, blackberries that have just started ripening (they are the black ones in the picture--the net is there to slow down the birds from eating all the fruit before I can get to it; by the way, if any bird is reading this, please eat the other berries that grow in the yard and not the ones that humans can consume, and if you get caught in the net, don't peck at me when I fish you out to free you) and blackberries that I will be eating as part of my lunch today and for probably about the next month.  But this isn't about how great I am (though I am pretty great, only my modesty keeps me from telling you more about that--ha!), this post is about how great blackberries in the yard are.

I'll be blunt.  People, don't be stupid.  Stop paying people to spray potentially-hazardous stuff on your lawn if you are doing it, and don't start doing so if you aren't, and maybe you too will someday be able to walk out in the lawn and chow down on delicious fruit, delicious fruit that you didn't even plant, delicious fruit that just showed up to say, "Thank you for not being the type of idiot who is obsessed with a narrow conception of nature.  Eat me for free."